Qualification programme of the RTG in the summer semester 2026

In the summer semester 2026, the qualification programme of the RTG included workshops and courses on Matlab, simulation-based power analyses, neuroimaging preprocessing, Bayesian statistics, eye tracking and pupillometry, and the supervision of student assistants, which were tailored specifically to the needs of our PhD students and postdocs.

On the 5th and 6th of March, Dr. Dipl.-Psych. Andreas Sprenger led a two-day Matlab course for RTG members, providing hands-on training in one of the most widely used programming environments in neuroscience and psychological research.

On the 26th of March, Dr. Sarah Koch offered a workshop on simulation-based power analyses in R. The session equipped participants with practical tools for planning well-powered studies, an increasingly important skill in modern empirical research.

On the 16th and 17th of April, Sterre van de Langenberg and Fabian Dorok led a two-day workshop on HeudiConv and fMRIPrep, two widely used tools for converting and preprocessing neuroimaging data. The workshop offered hands-on guidance relevant to the many RTG projects involving fMRI data.

On the 23rd and 24th of April, Prof. Dr. Timo von Oertzen conducted a two-day workshop on Bayesian statistics, introducing participants to the powerful framework for data analysis and inference, with practical applications to their own research.

On the 8th to 10th of June, Dr. Niels Kloosterman led a three-day workshop on eye tracking and pupillometry, covering both the theoretical foundations and practical implementation of these methods in psychological and neuroscientific research, with a special focus on time-resolved deconvolution analysis for pupil data.

Finally, on the 22nd of June , Prof. Dr. Nicolas Schuck offered a session on the supervision of student assistants. The session addressed key challenges and strategies in mentoring student assistants, a topic of practical relevance for many of our PhD students who take on supervisory responsibilities during their doctoral training.